Negev desert | Israel Tours Negev desert 3 Replies The Negev desert, shaped like a 4700 square mile inverted triangle in the south of Israel, makes up more than half of the country’s land area. I can arrange to make a visit to the Negev part of your itinerary, you have to experience the desert to understand its importance. Geographically the Negev can be divided into 5 areas: the northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arava Valley. This article focuses on the high plateau area, Ramat HaNegev (Negev Heights). The plateau stands between 370 metres and 520 metres above sea level and has extreme temperatures in summer and winter and significant differences in temperature between day and night. Even though the area gets only 100 mm of rainfall per year and the soil is poor and quite salty, Israel is successfully growing olives, pomegranates, pistachios and grapes for wine. Here are some places to add to your itinerary as you explore Ramat HaNegev.

Kibbutz Revivim is growing 5 varieties of olives using brackish water and selling the olives and olive oil in an upmarket boutique dedicated to their products in Tel Aviv. Park Golda includes a lake and picnic tables to eat your lunch or for an unforgettable desert experience, try Beduin hospitality in a black goat’s hair tent followed by a camel ride. The Large Makhtesh is one of 3 craters in the region, a unique formation to the Negev, where the inside of a mountain is eroded by water, leaving the outer shell. Visit the tzrif on Kibbutz Sde Boker to get a glimpse of how Ben-Gurion and Paula lived. The Ben-Gurion Institute, a research facility for the study and the dissemination of his writings, offers visitors a multi-media program about the man and his vision. You can visit a string of family farms along route <40> for wine and cheese tasting and even sleep over in one of their cabins under the desert stars.

On farms that are growing grapes and making wine, the vines have been planted on the same 1500 year old terraces that were prepared by the Nabateans and take advantage of runoff from the winter rains. These farms are also a symbol of Israel’s pioneering spirit in the 21st century, composting their waste, recycling their grey water and generating electricity using solar photovoltaic panels. Hike into the canyon at the Ein Avdat National Park with springs, pools and waterfalls, an oasis in the desert or from the Roman bath house (below Avdat) supplied with water drawn from a well tunneled 70 meters through bedrock hike north along the Israel Trail to the Ein Eikev spring that flows year round. Visit the remains of the Nabatean city of Avdat which was probably the regional capital. Located at the crossroads that join Petra in Trans-Jordan to Eilat and to Gaza, Avdat controlled the passage of the caravans from India and Arabia. Conquered in 106 CE by the Roman Emperor Trajan, it lost its importance when a road was built between Eilat and Damascus.

Avdat adjusted by adopting agriculture, particularly the production of wine, as its means of subsistence. Numerous terraced farms and water channels were built throughout the region in order to collect enough run-off from winter rains to support agriculture in the hyper arid zone of the Negev. At least five wine presses dated to the Byzantine period have been found at the site showing us how important wine-making was in this region. In the Byzantine period (5th and 6th century) a citadel and a monastery with two churches were built on the acropolis of Avdat on the ruins of earlier pagan temples. The town was totally destroyed by a local earthquake in the early seventh century and was never reinhabited. Share this: Israeli MOUT Facility Model for National Guard | Article | The United States Army Israeli MOUT Facility Model for National Guard By Staff Sgt. Jim GreenhillJanuary 14, 2008 Share via Email 1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, and other Guard leaders pause with members of the Israeli Defense Forces during a visit last month to the Israeli MOUT training facility in the Negev Desert.

) (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – A street scene at an Israeli MOUT training facility in the Negev Desert, Israel, visited by National Guard officials Dec. 3 as part of a four-day trip to Israel to bolster the National Guard Bureau's relationship with the Home Front Command and discuss joint exercises and other possible exchanges (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill) VIEW ORIGINAL BALADIA CITY, Israel (Army News Service, Jan. 14, 2008) - National Guard Soldiers could one day train at a state-of-the-art urban warfare training center in Israel, or one modeled after it, according to Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum. The chief of the National Guard Bureau visited the National Urban Training Center in Baladia City, Israel, last month, and called it a "world-class site." "We probably should have a facility like that of our own," Blum said, "in the interim, we should explore the opportunities to train here." From a distance, it looks like a bustling desert town.

But it's a purpose-built mock-up on a real-life scale designed as a training ground for military operations in urban terrain, or MOUT. Blum and other National Guard leaders toured the NUTC with Israeli Defense Forces officers during a four-day visit to Israel to bolster the Bureau's relationship with the IDF Home Front Command and discuss joint exercises and other possible exchanges under the aegis of the U.S. European Command. The 7.4-square-mile NUTC is at the IDF's National Center for Ground Force Training in the Negev Desert, west of the Gaza Strip and north of Egypt. The 4,700-square-mile Negev covers more than half of Israel and includes thousands of miles of open space ideal for the country's premier military training facility. Some 472 structures line four miles of roads in this concrete town dubbed Baladia City. "It is the most realistic, extensive replication of the sort of urban area typical of this region of the world that I've ever seen," Blum said. The NUTC includes high-rise buildings typical of business or high-density residential districts, streets lined with single-story buildings, a complex tunnel system and labyrinthine areas typical of some older Middle Eastern city centers.

A stripped vehicle blocking a road adds to the realism. "It is just such a superb training facility for all the nuances and the situational awareness and the battlefield conditions that Soldiers face in this part of the world," Blum said. Soldiers have lost their way training here. They are found thanks to force-identification and location systems built in to the training area. Every movement is recorded, every building bristles with sensors and every troop is wired for after-action review. "I'd like to see Soldiers go through a facility like this somewhere before they deploy to counterinsurgency missions abroad," Blum said. "You get the advantage of the identical climate, the same geography, topography. You have the benefit of being in the environment, yet you're totally secure and you're able to train." When the topography doesn't exactly match training requirements, the Israelis bring in bulldozers that move the desert sand until it more closely resembles what trainers need. "It's a first-rate place," Blum said. "It couldn't be more realistic unless you let people actually live there." (Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill writes for the National Guard Bureau. Master Sgt.

Bob Haskell Times and other sources contributed to this report.) RELATED STORIES Things To Do In The Negev Desert | Getting Stamped Things To Do In The Negev Desert 31 Mar Share The Negev Desert covers almost the entire southern part of Israel, from Be’er Sheva down to Eilat on the Red Sea. The yellow sands of the Negev Desert fill more than half of Israel, more than 4,700 square miles. Since the creation of modern day Israel, this part of the country has been somewhat of a sacred place. From the times of Ben-Gurion (the country’s founder and first prime minister), there has been a movement to settle the rugged desert. The early leader loved the Negev Desert so much he chose to make it his final resting place. Although often overlooked by tourists in favor of the North, there are plenty of things to do in the Negev Desert. We had an amazing time in the early part of our tour with Puzzle Israel exploring the Negev Desert. Things To Do In The Negev Desert Wine Something you wouldn’t think possible in the climate of the Negev Desert would be growing grapes.

However, there are now over a dozen wineries producing many varieties of quality wines from the soils of the Negev Desert. During our tour with Puzzle Israel we stayed at Carmey Advat vineyard in their unique guest houses in a narrow valley of the Negev. Hiking There are numerous hiking trails throughout the Negev and parts of the 1000 km long Israel Trail run through also. Tighten the laces of your hiking boots and enjoy the peacefulness and beauty of the desert. Rappelling The adventurous can strap themselves in and rappel down a vertical wall of the Ramon Crater. From one of the main viewpoints around the crater you can make the 50-foot vertical journey down to a ledge in the rock wall. For those with a fear of heights it may take some time to work up the courage, but the experience and the views of the Negev desert are worth it. 4×4 When in the Negev Desert one of the best things to do is jump on a 4×4 tour and really explore the desert. We took an offroad tour through the Ramon Crater, which is actually not a crater but a unique geological formation called a Makhtesh.

Throughout the tour our guides brought us to hard to reach places in the desert to show us the true beauty and explain the environment. Biking One of the best ways to explore the Negev desert is by mountain bike. During our Puzzle Israel tour, we rented bikes and cruised along trails that circled the Makhtesh Ramon (crater). We rode along the rim for some spectacular views of the desert. Camping in the Desert There is just something very peaceful about sleeping out in the desert. The Negev desert is very sparsely populated and has almost no light pollution so the stars shine bright most nights. We cooked traditional Israeli dishes right in the middle of the desert and it was one of my favorite things we did in Israel. Sunsets The perfect way to finish a day in the desert is to find a lookout and just watch the sunset. With all the amazing things to do in the Negev Desert the simple ones are some of the best. We managed to take in all of these sights in the Negev in just two days on our tour with Puzzle Israel, it was a busy but great couple of days in the desert.

Our readers get a special discount when booking with Puzzle Israel , just mention that Hannah & Adam from Getting Stamped sent you! Thanks to Puzzle Israel for inviting us to experience Israel with you. As always opinions are our own. Things To Do In The Negev Desert is published on 2016-03-31T20:05:03-05:00 and last modified: 2016-12-23T04:05:21-06:00 by Adam Negev Desert - Memidex dictionary/thesaurus Negev Desert a desert in southern Israel Class: Negev or Negeb: Hebrew, "dry" (Source: Columbia Encyclopedia) [more] Negev (Coordinates: 30.500°N 34.917°E) a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba, in the north. At its southern end is the Gulf of Aqaba and the resort city of Eilat. It contains several development towns, including ...

the desert region of southern Israel (6 of 331 words, 6 usage examples, pronunciation) | Negeb | Ha-negev [Hebrew] arid region, southern part of Israel, occupying almost half of Palestine west of the Jordan, and about 60 percent of Israeli territory under the ... Columbia Encyclopedia: Negev | Negeb hilly desert region of southern Israel, about 5,140 sq mi (13,310 sq km), bordered by the Judaean Hills, the Wadi Arabah, the Sinai peninsula, and the ... (26 of 176 words, pronunciations) Oxford Dictionary: Negev | the Negev ("the Negev") | an arid region forming most of southern Israel, between Beersheba and the Gulf of Aqaba, on the Egyptian border. Large areas are ... (24 of 44 words, 2 definitions, pronunciation) Random House Dictionary: Negev | Negeb a partially reclaimed desert region and district in southern Israel, bordering on the Sinai Peninsula. 4700 square miles (12,173 square kilometers). ...

(21 of 31 words, pronunciations) American Heritage Dictionary: Negev A hilly desert region of southern Israel. Assigned to Israel after the partition of Palestine in 1948, it has various mineral resources. (22 of 27 words, pronunciations) University President Builds Negev Desert School Into Powerhouse - Bloomberg Bloomberg the Company & Its Products Bloomberg Anywhere Remote LoginBloomberg Anywhere Login Bloomberg Terminal Demo Request Bloomberg Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world. Customer Support Advertising Bloomberg Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world. Customer Support University President Builds Negev Desert School Into Powerhouse Gwen Ackerman Rivka Carmi says her penchant for short skirts almost torpedoed her chance to become the first woman dean of an Israeli medical faculty. Now she’s the country’s first and only female university president. The pediatric geneticist’s next goal is to turn Ben-Gurion University of the Negev into an internationally recognized research institution and a leader in cybersecurity work.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who sees Israel as a center for technology and expertise to defend against digital attacks, is lending a hand: His cabinet this month approved moving military bases into the 4,700-square-mile desert region that the college, named for Israel’s first prime minister, calls home. “Quite early on, I identified the potential in our Internet security department,” Carmi, 66, said in an interview at the university. “It wasn’t even called cyber yet.” The tipping point came when Deutsche Telecom AG began investing in the research in 2005. Carmi credits her predecessor and mentor, Avishay Braverman, for jump-starting BGU’s ascension. An economist who served as minister of minorities, Braverman was the school’s president for 16 years before Carmi took over in 2006. Since then, the number of doctoral students has grown by 70 percent, with those who actually complete their doctorates up by a third. Research funding rose by almost 25 percent, to $82 million, and the computer department’s information-security experts has teamed up with the government in the establishment of a cyber-technology center across the street from campus.

Bedouin Tent Recently, EMC Corp., the world’s biggest maker of storage computers, opened a branch in Beersheba. It was drawn by military plans to move intelligence corps to the desert, the university’s Internet security department and what Orna Berry, the company’s general manager in Israel, called Carmi’s “track record” of getting things done in a sometimes geographically hostile place. The school’s move onto the international stage would have been hard to predict in 1970, when the first dean of students set up offices in a Bedouin tent. Nine years later, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty on the campus in Beersheba, the Negev’s only city. Now BGU has almost 20,000 students, and Beersheba is in the midst of building boom. The city is surrounded by a rocky desert of cliffs, sand dunes and thorn bushes. The Negev makes up about half of Israel’s landmass but houses only 14 percent of the nation’s 8 million people. Net income per household is the lowest after Jerusalem, the poorest city based on per capita income.

Globalization Just 25 miles from Gaza Strip, ruled by the Hamas group that the U.S., European Union and Israel say engages in terrorism, Beersheba has come under rocket fire three times since Carmi became president. During the 50-day conflict with Hamas last summer, Carmi organized a student-volunteer daycare program for staff at Soroka Hospital, so the medical center closest to the fighting could operate. BGU isn’t all about cybersecurity. It has a medical school and a desert-studies program and is a leader in biotechnology. Earlier this year, two professors were awarded European Research Council grants of up to 2 million euros ($2.3 million) to study the psychological and biological underpinnings of corruption, and a team of researchers discovered a genome combination that affects susceptibility to Type 2 diabetes. In the nine years since Carmi took over “we’ve put a very large emphasis on globalization of the university,” said Zvi Hacohen, the school’s rector. Wearing Miniskirts Carmi, born in Hadera, was an officer in the air force before studying medicine in Jerusalem and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She’s credited with identifying 12 genes and three syndromes but, she says, almost didn’t become dean of the Ben Gurion Faculty of Health Sciences in 2000 because of a campaign by a conservative professor at the school who complained that she wore miniskirts. “If you burst into tears over criticism you are at an immediate disadvantage,” she says. “For God’s sake, you can learn to get over it.” That’s along the lines of her message to the country, too, when it comes to women in education. Only 27 percent of Israeli university faculty and 16 percent of full professors are female, according to a 2013 study Carmi headed on behalf of the Council for Higher Education. Political Activism “We need to change the playing field, which is very masculine,” she says, adding that “change will come only step by step.” Exclusive insights on technology around the world. Get Fully Charged, from Bloomberg Technology.

Sign Up In an Israeli Plan, Bedouins See a Threat to Their Way of Life - The New York Times The New York Times Middle East |In an Israeli Plan, Bedouins See a Threat to Their Way of Life Search Continue reading the main story JERUSALEM — As Israel prepares to force thousands of Bedouins to give up land that their families have lived on for generations, officials have struggled to convince residents of the ramshackle communities scattered across the vast Negev desert that moving to new, legal homes will pave a path to a better future. But after decades of discrimination and neglect, many Bedouins and their supporters see only a plot to destroy their way of life. “I don’t need gutters,” complained one man during a recent meeting with government representatives in a tin-roofed tent in Abdeh, one of many villages in the desert that Israel does not recognize. “I don’t want a road,” added another. Finally, to be perfectly clear, 70-year-old Swellem al-Kallab, the tribal elder, leaned into his visitors’ faces, took the toothpick from his mouth and traced a circle on the concrete floor.

“Where we sit right now, you just draw a line around it,” he seethed. “I want to stay here.” The fundamental disconnect reflects the increasingly contentious dispute over Israel’s $2 billion plan to resettle its Bedouin citizens as part of a major redevelopment initiative as it moves two huge military bases into the Negev. The plight of the Bedouins has in many circles become a proxy for the broader Arab-Israeli conflict, prompting condemnation from human rights groups, European lawmakers and cultural celebrities. Demonstrations against the plan last weekend left 15 police officers injured and 48 protesters arrested. As right-wing lawmakers threatened to kill the plan because of the Bedouins’ unwillingness to make concessions, Arab members of Israel’s Parliament sent a letter on Thursday asking Secretary of State John Kerry to help block it. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Proponents of the project say that no state can abide people’s building where and what they wish without approval, and that it promises the Bedouins, by far Israel’s poorest sector, clinics, jobs, education and infrastructure that they sorely lack.

Opponents call it insidious racism, ethnic cleansing or even apartheid; complain that the Bedouins were not consulted enough in the plan’s construction; and accuse Israel of a land grab that ignores their culture and traditions. It would be difficult to overstate the level of distrust underlying the dispute. But there is no denying the hardship that Bedouins face: Their infant mortality rate is seven times that in Tel Aviv, illiteracy and unemployment are rampant, and many live without water, electricity, phone and sewage services. “They deserve more, and they can be given more,” said Clinton Bailey, an Israeli scholar who has studied the Bedouins for 45 years. “If the government just realizes that it has to think it out and decide what it can give them and specify it and then talk to people, they’ll find much less opposition than they have today.” The Bedouins, seminomadic Arab Muslims, trace their history in the 4,700-square-mile Negev to the seventh century. When Israel became a state in 1948, all but 11,000 of the 90,000 Bedouins fled.

Those who remained were granted citizenship but concentrated under military rule in about 10 percent of the area known as the Siyag — Arabic for “fence” — that their advocates liken to a Native American reservation in the United States. Today, that area is home to 200,000 Bedouins, whose birthrates are the world’s highest. Roughly a third of them are polygamous, and about half live in seven towns that Israel built between 1968 and 1989, where crime is high and streets are strewn with garbage. Israel has in recent years recognized 13 villages, legalizing dwellings long slated for demolition, but has moved slowly, if at all, to modernize them. There remain 35 unrecognized villages like Abdeh, with a total of 70,000 residents, who could face forced relocation. The most contested element of the plan — known as Prawer-Begin after its authors, Ehud Prawer, the government’s director of planning, and Benny Begin, a former cabinet minister — is its proposed resolution of nearly 3,000 land claims totaling 230 square miles.

After Israeli courts rejected 200 such claims, most based on handwritten deeds, the government created a complex formula to compensate Bedouins based on the location of the land, whether they are still cultivating it and how quickly they apply. Most would get half or a quarter of the land, plus some cash. The rest of the land would be seized by the state for its own use, or redistributed to Bedouins from far-flung areas of what officials call “the diaspora.” Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy “We are not against development,” said Thabet Abu Rass of Adalah , an advocacy group for Arab rights in Israel. “The question is why, whenever the State of Israel wants to develop the Negev, it’s always at the expense of the Bedouin.” The Bedouins and their advocates say that they simply want to maintain their small agricultural villages, and have developed an alternative plan to put them on the grid, but that the government has ignored it.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story One such place is Alsra, whose residents had a sign made to mark it that uses the same colors and fonts of those that the government places on roads across Israel. But the Bedouins added the phrase “established in the Ottoman Empire,” along with a picture of a bulldozer and a house to symbolize the demolition orders pending since 2006 against the village’s 70 structures. Khalil Alamour, a high school teacher and father of seven, persuaded Waze, the popular Israeli GPS system, to put Alsra on its maps, and he provides pirated Wi-Fi to his neighbors. A one-inch pipe brings a trickle of water to the 500 residents, who dug 10 cisterns and pay to have sewage pumped out every 18 months. There is no garbage collection, but solar panels are everywhere: Eight recharge Mr. Alamour’s 12 two-volt batteries, which serve his three-bedroom stucco house, behind which are satellite dishes and the 10 hens that provide his daily breakfast.

A math and computer teacher, he said that Israel wanted to condense the Bedouins in urban centers “like a zip drive to compress files.” “They will take me into a cage and build a house and put me inside of these four walls and say, ‘You are modernized, now you have electricity and washing machine,’ ” Mr. Alamour said. “I have that already. I don’t even need the services, just to live in peace in my father’s land.” Ami Tesler, who is promoting the plan for the prime minister’s office, said about a dozen such villages would probably be recognized, though he would not say which — the lack of specifics has infuriated the Bedouins. On a recent tour of the area he said he hoped that 80 percent of the Bedouins would remain in place, but added, “You cannot make infrastructure to one tent here and one tent 200 meters or 400 meters there — they give you models that cannot work.” Mr.

Tesler drove to El Sayed, a village of 5,000 officially recognized a decade ago, yet still without a sewage system, electric lines or the promised strip of shops and schools, which he attributed to “bureaucracy.” Then he went to Hura, a Bedouin city of 17,500, where bulldozers were busy carving a new subdivision, with concrete blocks on each lot to house utilities — this he called “the beginning of modernity.” Bedouins displaced by the plan will be given lots of 5,400 to 8,600 square feet in places like Hura, Mr. Tesler said, plus at least $28,000 to build. The government also promises investment in job training, education, health care and transportation. The next stop was Abdeh, one of four villages slated to become a new municipality on a dirt expanse a couple of miles away. The steepness of the challenge spilled out in a mix of Hebrew and Arabic as the government representatives tried to explain taxes, urban planning and parliamentary processes to men unwilling to leave their homes.

“If we need to move you, we’ll move you,” warned Eli Azmon, a government consultant. “You live in Zinco,” he said, referring to the corrugated metal that constitutes many Bedouin walls. “What’s the problem to move you a few hundred meters?” The conversation, like two before it in Abdeh, broke up without progress. “We have our own way of thinking, and you have your way of thinking,” said Labad Tasan, 45, after telling the visitors that Abdeh wanted to develop a tourism business but did not need toilets. “It will be a confrontation.” Correction: December 15, 2013 A map last Sunday with an article about resistance among Bedouins in the Negev desert to Israel’s plans to resettle them as part of a major redevelopment initiative gave an erroneous mileage scale. It is about seven miles, not 50. A version of this article appears in print on December 8, 2013, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In an Israeli Plan, Bedouins See a Threat to Their Way of Life.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Travel: The High Plateau of Ramat HaNegev - A7 Exclusive Features - News - Main All News A7 Exclusive Features Travel: The High Plateau of Ramat HaNegev Travel: The High Plateau of Ramat HaNegev A visit to the Negev should be on everyone's itinerary, because only by experiencing the desert can you understand its importance. Contact Editor Shmuel Browns and Hana Levi Julian, 06/11/09 11:33 | updated: 18:18 Ein Avdat Israel news photo: Shmuel Browns The Negev desert, shaped like a 4,700 square mile inverted triangle in the south of the country, makes up more than half of Israel’s land area. A visit to the Negev should be on everyone's itinerary, because only by experiencing the desert can you understand its importance. Geographically the Negev can be divided into five areas: the northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arava Valley.

The high plateau area, known as Ramat HaNegev (Negev Heights) is a small part of the region, but one of major importance. The plateau stands between 370 metres and 520 metres above sea level, with extreme temperatures in summer and winter and significant differences in those temperatures as day passes into night. The area gets only 100 mm of rainfall per year. But despite these constraints, and its inferior and partially salty soil, Israeli farmers are successfully growing olives, pomegranates, pistachios and grapes for wine in Ramat Hanegev. Here are some places to visit as you explore the region. Kibbutz Revivim is growing five varieties of olives using brackish water, and selling the olives and olive oil in an upmarket boutique dedicated to their products in Tel Aviv. Park Golda includes a lake and picnic tables to eat your lunch or for an unforgettable desert experience, try Bedouin hospitality in a black goat's hair tent followed by a camel ride.

The Great Makhtesh (Crater) is one of three craters in the region, a unique formation to the Negev, where the inside of a mountain is eroded by water, leaving only the outer shell, like eating a soft-boiled egg. You can also visit a string of family farms along Route 40 for wine and cheese tasting, (one must check individual kosher certification) and even sleep over in one of their cabins under the desert stars. On farms that are growing grapes and making wine, the vines have been planted on the same 1,500-year-old terraces that were prepared by the Nabateans and take advantage of runoff from the winter rains. These farms are also a symbol of Israel's pioneering spirit in the 21st century, composting their waste, recycling their non-potable "grey" water and generating electricity using solar photovoltaic panels. From the third century BCE the Nabateans traversed the Negev on caravans of camels laden with precious spices from Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, a route of about 2,400 kilometers punctuated by some 65 camel stops one day apart.

Over time the Nabateans settled in the area, building cities; Avdat, Shivta, Haluza and Mamshit have all been designated UNESCO World Heritage sites and are part of the Israel National Parks system. The famous Kibbutz Sde Boker was built on the Negev Heights in 1952 by a group of discharged soldiers who had served in the area. The kibbutz attracted the public’s attention when David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister and elder statesman, and his wife Paula went to live there. Just south of Kibbutz Sde Boker you will see the sign for the cabin of the "Old Man" that today houses the Ben-Gurion Museum. There is a whole campus named after Ben-Gurion, which houses an Arid Zones research institute, an environmental center that includes a high school and college, a field school and guest house, a reptile farm and a desert sculpture museum. The Ben-Gurion Institute, a research facility for the study and the dissemination of his writings, offers visitors a multi-media program about the man and his work.

While staying at the guest house, Sde Boker can also be used as the base for a hike into the canyon at the Ein Avdat National Park with springs, pools and waterfalls, an oasis in the desert. One may also hike from Avdat -- beside the gas station and Roman bath house that is supplied with water drawn from a well tunneled 70 meters through bedrock -- north along the Israel Trail to the Ein Eikev spring that flows year round. If you continue hiking the Israel Trail for a couple of days, you can reach the Great Makhtesh. Next, visit the remains of the Nabatean city of Avdat, which was probably the regional capital. There is still disagreement among scholars about the reasons for the sudden appearance of the Nabateans on the stage of history in the second half of the first millennium BCE, and their disappearance in the second half of the 1st millennium CE. Located at the crossroads that join Petra in Jordan to Eilat and to Gaza, Avdat controlled the passage of the caravans from India and Arabia. Conquered in 106 CE by the Roman Emperor Trajan, it lost its importance when a road was built between Eilat and Damascus.

Avdat adjusted by adopting agriculture, particularly the production of wine, as its means of subsistence. Numerous terraced farms and water channels were built throughout the region in order to collect enough run-off from winter rains to support agriculture in the hyper-arid zone of the Negev. At least five wine presses dating back to the Byzantine period have been found at the site, showing us how important wine-making was in this region. In the Byzantine period (5th and 6th century) a citadel and a monastery with two churches were built on the acropolis of Avdat on the ruins of earlier pagan temples. The town was later totally destroyed by a local earthquake in the early 7th century and was never reinhabited. Shmuel Browns is a licensed tour guide and conducts tours throughout the State of Israel. All photos in this article were snapped by Shmuel Browns. For more information on tours, click here! Desert MOUT facility is model for National Guard > National Guard > Guard News - The National Guard Download | BALADIA CITY, Israel - National Guard Soldiers and Airmen could one day exercise at a state-of-the-art urban warfare training center here.

From a distance, the National Urban Training Center (NUTC) looks like a bustling desert town. But it's a purpose-built mock-up on a real-life scale designed as a training ground for military operations on urban terrain (MOUT). "This is a world-class site that the Israelis have built," LTG H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said during a December visit. "We probably should have a facility like that of our own; in the interim, we should explore the opportunities to train here." Blum and other National Guard leaders toured the NUTC with Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officers during a four-day visit to Israel to bolster the Bureau's relationship with the IDF Home Front Command and discuss joint exercises and other possible exchanges under the aegis of the U.S. European Command. The 7.4-square-mile NUTC is at the IDF's National Center for Ground Force Training in the Negev Desert, west of the Gaza Strip and north of Egypt. The 4,700-square-mile Negev covers more than half of Israel and includes thousands of miles of open space ideal for the country's premier military training facility.

Some 472 structures line four miles of roads in this concrete town dubbed Baladia City. "It is the most realistic, extensive replication of the sort of urban area typical of this region of the world that I've ever seen," Blum said. The NUTC includes high-rise buildings typical of business or high-density residential districts, streets lined with single-story buildings, a complex tunnel system and labyrinthine areas typical of some older Middle Eastern city centers. A stripped vehicle blocking a road adds to the realism. "It is just such a superb training facility for all the nuances and the situational awareness and the battlefield conditions that Soldiers face in this part of the world," Blum said. Soldiers have lost their way training here. They are found thanks to force-identification and location systems built in to the training area. Every movement is recorded, every building bristles with sensors and every troop is wired for after-action review. "I'd like to see Soldiers go through a facility like this somewhere before they deploy to counterinsurgency missions abroad," Blum said. "You get the advantage of the identical climate, the same geography, topography.

You have the benefit of being in the environment, yet you're totally secure and you're able to train." When the topography doesn't exactly match training requirements, the Israelis bring in bulldozers that move the desert sand until it more closely resembles what trainers need. "It's a first-rate place," Blum said. "It couldn't be more realistic unless you let people actually live there." Note: Master Sgt. Bob Haskell, the Marine Corps Times and other sources contributed to this report. Travel: The High Plateau of Ramat HaNegev - News Briefs - Cheshvan 20, 5770 , 07/11/09 Travel: The High Plateau of Ramat HaNegev The Negev desert, shaped like a 4,700 square mile inverted triangle in the south of the country, makes up more than half of Israel’s land area. A visit to the Negev should be on everyone's itinerary, because only by experiencing the desert can you understand its importance. Geographically the Negev can be divided into five areas: the northern, western and central Negev, the high plateau and the Arava Valley

Question: In what country would you find the 4,700 square-mile Negev Desert?
Answer: Israel